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A. VISION OF USEFULNESS 


Hoa “= Four North “Carolina Blibrarians re- 
turning from the annual meeting of the 
American Library Association at Swamp- 
‘scott, ‘Mass., a seashore resort twelve 
miles out of Boston’ came back to their 
“posts 0 on July’ 1 with an enlarged vision 
of the usefulness of the library as an 
effective American educational institu- 
tion. “After having fellowshipped with 
‘some 1950 librarians from all parts of 
ie: country and having visited the li-| 
‘braries of! Boston and _ its environs, 
they were more heartily in accord than 
ev fer with Thomas Carlyle’s dictum that 
a “library is the people’s. university. 
Ih In view of the fact that North Caro- 
i ‘lina’ s library resources, including pub-| 
lic, college and university, State and 
I Supreme Court, and rural school libra- 
‘ries, total only approximately 1,125, 000 
-yolumes, they were doubly convinced 
that more such universities should be 
open to the state and that more North 
‘Carolinians should matriculate in them! 


Every Town Has Library 


“BETTER LIBRARIES NEEDED _ 


Pr csreas College for Women and Guil- 
ford and Rutherford bear the name of | 
some citizen of the local community or 
state rather than that of the Laird of 
Skibo. In this respect the Pages, of 
Aberdeen, Pack, of Asheville, Duke, of 
Trinity, and Raney, of Raleigh, have 
followed the prevailing New England 
custom and that too to their own honor 
and the very great good of their home 
towns and institutions. 


Large Book Collections 


A very distinctive feature of the 
New England library is ‘the size of its 
| book collection. North Carolina press 
notices of July 8 and 9 carried the news 
that the $75,000 Carnegie Library of | 
Durham had just opened with 8,000 i 
| books on the shelyes and that. the early | 
addition of 1,000 new volumes was con-'! 
templated. Beverly, Massachusetts, | 
some twenty-odd miles out of Boston, 
with a population of 22,561—near enough 
‘that of Durham.for the sake of com* 
| parison—has 43,000 volumes in its pub- | 
lic library and has an income sufficient | 
ito provide a steady increase of new 


state hehe will r 
aol ee tha 


and pimires are Caer ent 
ing in cide 3 Carolina» libr 


| riety is wanti 
| examples Bich 


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tar fe 
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of the University library, | 
brary, and the North a 


‘The News Letter hasn’t all the facts 
concerning Massachusetts libraries at 
‘its finger tips. But it has the one fact 
‘which is the boast of every Massachu- 
‘setts librarian, namely, that. every 
.town in Massachusetts save one main-| 
‘tains a free public library, and: that 
one is served by a branch library of 
a naa city... 


- Donated by Residents 


it Pi second fact of which the Massa- 
-chusetts librarian boasts is that the lo- 
eal library building is, in the majority 
of instances, the gift of a citizen, who, 
‘true to the New England habit of leav- 
in ; something to Harvard, or Yale, or 


sen ies build it”, ihe 


'of Essex county court house, with 30,- 
'008 volumes. Compared with these the 


publications. Similarly, Salem, Massa- 
chusetts, witha. population of 42,529, 
which is about the same as that of 
Charlotte and less than that of Winston- | 
Salem, maintains the library ‘of the E 
Essex Institute, with more than 500,000 
volumes; the Salem publiclibrary, with | 
70,000 volumes; the Salem Athenaeum, 
with 20,000 volumes; and the law library | 


Obvinuely the 48 North 
| libraries which. accordi 
report of the North 


| Carnegie library and the Salem Acad- | 
emy and College library of Winston- | 
Salem contain 10,554 and 7,226 volumes 
respectively and the Carnegie Library 
\of Charlotte contains 10,396. Statistics 
for the law libraries for Forsyth and | 


aes in neither instance would the num- 
‘ber run as high as the 30,000 in the Es- 
sex county court house, which far. and | 
away exceeds the 6,500 volumes in the 


i AYE 
weit 


| 


ng Massachusetts library 
sult that the libraries 


S ‘corresponding t to 
Teensboro Hen- 


library of the Supreme Court of North 
Carolina. Sila iin x 


law library of the University of North 


Carolina and the 22,616 volumes in the 


abe 


‘out t the North nd Central West hold 
membership in the Special Libraries 
Association ot America. The first of 


struction — ‘Company, which recently 


penditure of a million or more dollars, 
maintains a highly specialized collec- 
‘tion on engineering, construction, con- 
crete, and industrial management. In- 


lable, in the light of which the firm is 


gram of procedure. Similarly, the Roger 
W. Babson Statistical Organization 
specializes in financial statistics and 
| business. The Boston Society of Civil 
‘Engineers maintains a collection of 10, 
yolames and 3;000 pamphlets on 
municipal, state, and federal engineéer- 
ing, engineering text books, and en- 
ineering periodicals, and the Massa- 
‘dl usetts Horticultural Society places 
2B, 000 volumes on agriculture, horti- 
Neahenee and landscape gardening at 
the, disposal of its members. The shoe 
and electric industries of Lynn, the 
jewelry manufacturers of Providence, 
the. cutlery factories of New Britain, 
| the textile mills of Lowell, all main- 
tain complete technical libraries; and 
instead of scrapping them as non-essen- 
| tials at the beginning of the present 
period of depression, -have increased 
the use of them and their group of ex- 
yerts in finding a lower cost production 
of their’ wares—a thing which North 
Carolinians who produce ‘and manufac- 
ture cotton goods, and woolens, and 
tobacco, and furniture, ete., must con- 
sider and employ if they continue to 
‘compete successfully with their North- 
ern competitors. The present anarket 
is. certainly. not one in which the hit or 
5 method can gee be esenlyet 
ow Er 


Hs 


S| sity, h ded in the’ Harry Elkins Widene r 
Memorial building completed in 191 


a literature, lost his life on the fatefu 


the Boston list, the Aberthaw Con) 


came into North Carolina and surveyed | 
a building program involving the ex-|j 


buildings. 


finite data on these subjects is avail-| 


able to give its patrons an exact pro-| 


Special Libraries .. 


lattain if the. University is to becon 


‘and the State is to be placed in the lis 
of those ‘commonwealths nance give due 


rare Paone in the field of English 1 


; Titanic and the building, which contains 
the -collection assembled by him an 
now preserved in the, famous Widene 
room, was erected in his memory by 
his mother. It also contains the Col, 
lege library, founded in 1638, of 1,094, - 
200 volumes, and its administration is 
combined with that of eleven siaee ME 


one special libraries housed in othe 
The total collection, as ana- 
lyzed ina recent handbook issued by||t it 
the University, is as follows: 


College Library .... 
Law School. 
Andover-Harvard Library 
Museum of Comparative Zool- 
ogy - 
Peabody Museum Meal boat 
Astronomical Ouseteacory | 
Herbarium... 32. ./. ‘ 
Arnold Arboretum....- 
Bussey Institution 
Medical School 
Dental School 
Blue Hill Observatory .....-.- 


1,094, 200] | 4 
208, 800 
175,500 


Pe ee 


suited oi Catena yer sta fe rece 


Seren ier roe St ee ek ee 


165, 800 f 
51,9001] | 
30,500 
40,900) 
26, 300) |) Lib 
96, 700) || com 
2,900) |" 
23, 600 

134,300 


Sic leieth ie le oie lv ol dleve iene 


eevee 


ileite Por ee brie testy ver 


2,018,100] |) 
From 40,000 to 60,000 volumes are or- 

dinarily added to the whole collection 

by gift and purchase each year. en 


The University Library 


Two hundred and twenty-one years, 
after the founding of the Bray Library 

at Bath (the first to be founded in the 1 
state) and one. hundred and twenty- 
seven years after the laying of the }|! 
corner stone of the Old East building eR 
(the first to be erected on the campus 
of the University), North Carolina has 
finally | achieved the distinction of ha 
ing built up within her borders a librat 
of 100,000 volumes—the ‘library. of the 
University, which, on June 15, 192 “ 
passed this mark and began to climb 
from 100,000 to 1,000,000 which it must 


the dominant University of the Sout 


a_i 


nee to “the county ‘board | 
which may receive lands, | 
aiding, ee books, ete., for the use | 
of the library, choose the fbearian and 
assistants, determine the number and 
location of branch libraries or loan sta- 
tions throughout the county, or contract 
‘with a library already in the county for 
‘services to the éntire citizenship. 


Distinctive Advantages 


I That a strong centralized library thus 
provided for affords its patrons distinct- 
ive advantages is at once apparent. 
These are: 

1. It has financial support sufficient 
to provide books of a varying character 
and in sufficient quantity to meet the 
| requirements of all classes of citizens. 


2.. It .can establish a unified system of | 
service to isolated settlements, schools, | 
and villages, thereby reaching at regu- 
lar intervals every section of the county. 
| A book wagon or automobile can be rut | 
on aregular fortnightly schedule, and 
can serve every local station. 

8. It can employ an efficient librarian 
and assistants in sufficient number to) 
administer the work effectively. 

_ 4. It lends itself to the uses:of other 
county organizations, such as the board 
of health and the board of education. 

5. It promotes unity of interest and 
cooperation in all undertakings having 
as their object the betterment of the 
county. 


State Agencies Eaployed 


In North Carolina, at present, three 
of the agencies mentioned above jare 
generally employed. According to "the 
latest statistics published by the North 
Carolina Library Commission (for 1919) 
and the office of the Superintendent of 


f 


« 


Public Instruction (for 1920), 48 towns 


‘operate public libraries, 4,686 schools 
have collections of from 85 to 125 books, 
‘and the North Carolina Library Com- 
| mission in the biennium 1919-1920, op- 
jerated 831 traveling libraries in 620 
communities in 92 of the 100 North Ca- 
rolina counties. 


County Work Begun 

The county library of a modified type 
‘thas also been successfully tested in 
North Carolina. In. October, 1912, 
Mecklenburg county, through the coun- 
| ty board of education, appropriated $300 
| annually to the support of the Carnegie 
library of Charlotte. In return, the use 
of the library was made available to 
the teachers ‘of the county, and during 
‘th two and | a quarter years of glk ° 
1,000 volumes” ‘we circulated in rura 
sti a ee ay: 1915, the plan was 
use| the aannert. wae to9: 


ty commissioners have been He ‘con-- : i 
‘tracting parties. In April, 1914, they 


appropriated $400 and today the appr 


priation is $1,333.33. East and West i 


Durham are served, the latter having ay 
branch library supported in conjunction 
with the Erwin Mills; and Lowes Grove 
Union, Mineral Springs cand Patrick — 
Henry stations have’ received special — 


having served as librarians. All the 
county schools have made use of the - 
city library for reference and debate 
and essay material and individuals from 
every section of the county constantly 
borrow books. 


Guilford Leads 

Guilford county followed suit in 1915 
with an appropriation of $1,250 later 
raised to $1,500, the combined appro- 
priations from city and county being 
$7,500 at present. For 10 months the 
county support was discontinued, but: 
through the personal contributions of 
Mr. E. P. Whorton, of Greensboro, 
county service was not allowed to lapse. 
‘Today twelve stations carefully located 
throughout the county distribute books, 
and teachers, students, .and citizens 
‘from all sections draw books from the ~ 
city library. The total county loans 
‘amount to ten or twelve thousand vol- 
umes annually and the county is unani- 
mous in its praise of the service, 
| Small Tax Will Do 

In these three instances the cost has 
been only a fraction of one cent on the 
$100 worth of property, and for a tax 
of one cent every. county in North Car- 
olina could maintain, in conjunction with 
its principal town or county seat, a 
county-wide library with an: income 
| from $285 in Clay to $14,722 in Forsyth, 
whose assessed valuations in 1920 were 
‘the lowest and highest respectively in 
ithe state. People’s universities of this 
|sort certainly should be established, and ~ 


See 


|become’a regular matriculate in them. 


| The Law in the Case 

The General Assembly of North Ga-' 
rolina has enacted the following law 
‘relative to county libraries: 

Section I. That the board of Cres 
commissioners and the county beard of 
education of any county in which there 
is a public city or town library are here- 
‘by authorized and empowered in their 
‘discretion, to cooperate with the trus- ~ 


‘tees of said library in extending the 


service of such library tothe rural com- 
munities of the county, and to appro- | 
priate out of the funds under their — 
control an amount sufficient to pay, the 
expense of such library extension m 
vice. | 


from and after its ratifieation, 
Ratified this the 5th day cf March, ; 


Ye aad ; 


2% 
“4 
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A. D, 1917, ai R Wi, 


every North Carolinian should at once — 


Section 2. This act shall be in forse, 


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collections, the teachers at these places 


